If it's in your blood, good luck!

Seeing as how a filling my gas tank now requires my dipping into my savings account, making a decent amount of money matters to me. Gone are the days of honestly not caring that I am seriously underpaid given what teaching requires of me. Gone are the days of insisting that I’d teach for free (though I will most happily do it if I should win the lottery or inherit a tidy sum of money!). It’s time to be painfully realistic. And the reality is that I have to have money to buy gas. I have to buy gas because it makes my car, which is dreadfully NOT fuel efficient, run (but my car does okay on gas mileage- it’s not like a monster SUV- and has anyone noticed how much I love using parentheses?). I need my car to run so it can take my son and me places. We need to go places like the grocery store and to school….you get the picture. Money makes the world go ‘round. (I think I just vomited in my own mouth.)

 

So, now that I have admitted that money is important (and I suppose I will hear about it from some), I will also admit that though I enjoy teaching, I don’t enjoy it so much that I’m willing to lead my family to a gasoline-induced life of poverty. Back in 2003, I jokingly lamented that a part-time manager at QuikTrip, a.k.a. QT, made more money than I did as a third-year teacher. Today in 2007, I am still lamenting, but not joking so much anymore. I seriously considered submitting an application, but as my nearest and dearest will tell you, superficial perkiness isn’t my thing, and those folks at QT are always saying hi and goodbye with smiles on their faces. However, I DID start looking for jobs that would take me out of the elementary school setting. Even jobs that had absolutely nothing to do with teaching or a teaching certificate. I applied for positions with all kinds of institutions, from the University of Phoenix to Citigroup. I interviewed for quite a few and even seriously considered them. But at the end of the day, what position did I take for next year? A teaching position. At an elementary school.

 

Apparently, teaching at the elementary level is in my blood. Because no matter how much I told myself that it was time to do something different, whenever an opportunity presented itself, I wasn’t whole-heartedly sure. At one point in the last four months, I said that I would not take a classroom teacher position next year. And while I won’t be a homeroom teacher (I’ll explain in a bit), I have still landed myself a job in which I will be teaching….. in a classroom. It must be in my blood. Or I must really, really like it. Or I’m an insane glutton for punishment. Maybe a little of all three.

 

I am now employed by Rancho Solano Private Schools as a 4^th grade social studies teacher (I’ll be using a 5^th grade curriculum, so this is right up my alley) and a Preschool-4^th grade music teacher. I think it’s wonderful because I LOVE the 5^th grade social studies curriculum! It was by far the highlight of my 5^th grade teaching days. Plus I never thought I’d teach music in a school setting, so this is quite an opportunity, given my musical background. The most fantastic thing is that the school (the owner, the admin board, and the principal) is willing to work with me as far as the hours I can and cannot work. I’m definitely blessed.